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BF: So Damien, you're known for your shocking art especially
your series of animals preserved in formaldehyde. How did thatstart?
DH: Well I'd just graduated, early nineties, and I was in the States with my
brother. He introduced me to a friend of his at a party who was this
games dude called John Romero. We got talking about stuff, he was
telling me about this game he's designing, but he's stuck, he's got designers
block, and I said "yeah I know what you mean, I'm looking for something
that's never been done before, but It's not easy y' know" and we carry
talking about stuff.
Anyhow a couple of days later he phones me up, he's got a cousin out in the
woods somewhere who's called him to come and see the remains of some wierd
creature he's found, John's wondering if I'm interested. Well I was
at his door before he's put the phone down, <laughs> and we drive off
into the hills to this old farm. It's way out in the woods, miles from anywhere,
nd John's cousin starts telling us this wierd story about this old indian spirit
monster which haunts the mountain and we're like "Woah, Scooby doo"
and laughing about it.
Then he says he's found a dead one,
and we stop laughing cos it's getting wierd. He takes us into the barn and in
the middle of the floor there's this thing.
We're both kind of freaked out and excited and I'm saying "What the hell
is that?" and John's saying "How does that thing work?", and his
cousin is into hunting and stuff and he says "Lets cut it open and find out."
and I say "That's huge, what can you cut that up with?" and he says "
Well I've got a chainsaw." There was this moment when John and I look at each other.
John's really excited now and he says "Cut the hellspawn with a chainsaw, that's
it" and I'm thinking "Cut it in half with a chainsaw" and that was the
start of it, the first one.
So anyhow John goes back and makes his game and I buy it and bring it back to England
and start looking for a big fishtank." |
